Coombs: Excellent. You get vocal people who disagree with your approach, but that's OK. They're just passionate about your project. They want it to be awesome, which is exactly why they put their money in. Bottom line: they gave up their hard-earned money (in a recession no less) for what essentially amounts to a hope and a promise. You really owe them, and if you talk to them with a genuine voice, they return with equally genuine feedback. We love them. They let us chase our dream, and you really can't thank them enough.

Coombs: We feel that we are beholden to one thing: a great game. They invested their money to see the project come to life, and we made a promise that it would be as good as we could possibly make it. For example: we had originally promised to have a game that was like X-Com in nature with turn-based squad combat. We were really far into making that happen, and we just realized it wasn't fun. We had to make the switch to real time. And yes, when we told everyone that, people were, understandably, pissed. But, again, we promised the best game, not the best design doc. There have been a ton of design changes to the original concept, but we think the game is more fun, and that's the bottom line. We think they would agree.

Coombs: They're good but very dangerous in our books. Clearly Kickstarter is an open platform, and everyone should be permitted to put whatever project they want on there. However, the spirit of kickstarting is giving people their first shot or helping projects that never would have seen the light of day get going. So when you look at a project like Ouya, that's interesting because without going to the public, it's hard to say if that ever would have been a reality.

The same goes for FTL, Oculus, and countless others. But when guys like Molyneux get involved, it starts to get very gray. This guy has a track record and can seek out publishers, private venture, or even his own capital. It's kind of like Aerosmith getting on Kickstarter to make a new album--sure, it's cool that they're on there, but is it really the right venue? We just like seeing the little guys get a chance. We will have to see how that all works itself out though.

Totally agree about the big names getting in on Kickstarter being a bit of a poor show.

I hated the fact that Elite:Dangerous was on there. Not only was a peeved that the guy that made one of the biggest and best games of his era is coming to the public with his hat in his hand, but the fact he did so with a Project description that boiled down to "I made a game once, give me some cash so I can make it again".
And people just lapped it up god dammit!